Bruno Fernandes and the problem of being captain if you keep getting sent off | Simon Burnton
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Manchester United midfielder has been more disciplined this term but unique demands of his job keep him in the firing line. Against Leicester on Boxing Day Virgil van Dijk took to 50 the number of successive league games he has played every minute of. This alone does not explain why the Dutchman is such an effective leader, nor why his Liverpool side are currently so successful, but it certainly helps. There are many kinds of captain, many ways of leading, but above all the one unarguably necessary thing is to be present. You cannot lead a team from the stands.
![[Vinnie Jones of Wimbledon tries to block a shot from Bryan Robson of Manchester United in October 1998]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/45b58ca981735e32691920ca77364ff166acdea9/0_124_3995_2397/master/3995.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
At which point it is tempting to go in two-footed on Manchester United’s Bruno Fernandes, as many newspaper headlines did on Friday morning. The Portuguese is, for a couple more days at least, one of only four other captains to have played in every game of this Premier League season but that run ends with the visit of Newcastle on Monday, for which he will be suspended after Tony Harrington, just after half-time in the Boxing Day defeat to Wolves, became the third referee to show him a red card this campaign.
One of those, earned when he lost his footing and wiped out Tottenham’s James Maddison in September, was swiftly rescinded. The 30-year-old has not morphed into some kind of ferocious, fist-flailing footballing supervillain but he has given his many critics another reason to disapprove of him, his club’s general and ongoing loss of control seemingly mirrored by his own.
It is a curious situation, particularly given that Fernandes this season has somehow managed to be both more disciplined and also more harshly disciplined. The result is that, even discounting his transgression against Spurs, he has been sent off as many times in the past three months as in the 143 that make up the entirety of his previous first-team career, while at the same time notably reducing the number of fouls he commits. On Boxing Day there were only two, neither particularly grisly, but he got two yellow cards while João Gomes and Gonçalo Guedes of Wolves between them committed eight and got one. Sometimes a rush of reds suggests a player is being unsporting when in fact they are just unlucky.
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